Mar. 14, 1907 



American Hee Journal 



been overcome, 1 succeeded in getting 

 him to make one more test, which 

 was followed by no bad effects ; he 

 ever after bought of me all of his 

 honey, of which he was inordinately 

 fond, and hesitated not to discard all 

 other. 



Now, why should honey from my 

 apiary be innocent of harm, or after- 

 effects, and that from others guilty ? 

 There could not possibly have been 

 any difference except that between un- 

 ripe and Tvell cured honey. The honey 

 partaken of was all in the extracted 

 form. Had comb honey been used in 

 one case, and extracted in the other, 

 one would naturally conclude that the 

 wax probably produced the distress. 



As to unripe honey. Gleanings has 

 this to say : 



"The suggestion of Mr. Burnett is a very 

 good one, especially as unripe honey on the 

 market will suggest adulteration even if it 



does not make the producer of it actually 

 liable under the new law. We should be a 

 little fearful, at least, that some chemist 

 would declare some unripe honey as adulter- 

 ated, and it might be very diflicult tor the 

 producer to prove his ionocenoe of the charge. 

 All bee-keepers, therefore, had better err on 

 the safe side by seeing to it that all honey 

 shipped from their yards is thoroughly ripened, 

 with a good body and first-class flavor for the 

 kind of honey sold. 



" It is well to remember that the United 

 States standard for honey allows only 25 per- 

 cent of water, and any in excess of this 

 would certainly be construed as an adultera- 

 tion. Producers generally should ' paste this 

 in their hats.' " 



So it is evident that if we are in- 

 clined to be the least dishonest. Uncle 

 Sam will be right after us ; and as to 

 being careless, we may awake to the 

 fact that there is in existence such a 

 thing as criminal carelessness. 



Miami, Mo. Mary E. Null. 



r^ 



southern 



Conducted by Louis H. Scholl, New Braunsfels, Tex. 



Making' Increase for Out-Api- 

 aries 



A bee-keeper wishes to make sufii- 

 cient increase to start an out-apiary, 

 and wishes to know how to proceed, 

 €ven if he does not get a crop of honey 

 at the out-apiary the first season. At 

 the home-apiary he has about as many 

 colonies as he wants to keep at that 

 place, with perhaps a dozen weak col- 

 onies he thinks " not worth consider- 

 ing." 



Having started out-yards with these 

 same conditions, I will tell of two ways 

 in which to make the increase, the 

 weak colonies " not worth considering " 

 playing a great part in each of these. 



The time of our main honey-flow 

 must be considered. If it comes early 

 in the season, all colonies for surplus 

 storing must be built up to populous 

 colonies in time for this flow. Hence, 

 it will be seen that there is not much 

 time in which colonies can be built up ; 

 and bearing this in mind we plan mak- 

 ing the increase for the new yard ac- 

 cordingly. 



The " dozen weak colonies not worth 

 considering" are the very ones that 

 are '• considered " in this case. While 

 the strong colonies are left on the old 

 place, and gotten in readiness for the 

 early flow, the weaklings are taken to 

 the new location. Here they are fed 

 on sugar syrup to stimulate them and 

 build up as rapidly as possible. For 

 this purpose out-door feeding in a 

 wholesale way, giving enough syrup 

 each day to make an artificial flow as 

 much as possible like a light honey- 

 flow, works nicely. 



The syrup should be fed rather thin, 

 so the bees will be at work all day, and 

 less trouble will result from getting a 

 fracas started which would likely be 

 caused by feeding thick syrup or 

 honey. The feeding should be done a 

 little distance from the apiary, neces- 

 sitating the bees to carry the feed 

 home, much as when gotten from the 

 fields. If fruit-bloom has been on in 

 addition to the feeding, the bees will 

 be stimulated the more, besides getting 

 a supply of natural pollen, which 

 should otherwise have been supplied 

 them artificially also. 



As soon as brood-rearing has ad- 

 vanced well enough, and the weather 

 is favorable, the colonies are increased 

 by dividing them. If possible, laying 

 queens should be procured for this first 

 division, as it is yet too early to rear 

 good queens. Only a dozen queens 

 need be bought of some of our South- 

 ern breeders, who generally carryover 

 a lot of them through the winter. Out 

 of these some may prove very good, so 

 that young queens may be reared from 

 them for subsequent divisions, if they 

 are better than any of those already in 

 the yard. 



To divide the colonies, about two- 

 thirds of the brood — mainly sealed — is 

 given to the bees on a new stand, since 

 the old field-bees return to the old 

 stand. The old queen is left in the 

 hive on the old stand, while the new 

 colony — which now contains mostly 

 young bees, and to which a new queen 

 is much more easily and safely intro- 

 duced — receives the new queen. The 

 entrances of the hives are contracted 

 by means of grass, weeds or moss, 

 which is preferable to closing en- 



trances with wood or such other ma- 

 terial, as the bees can easily enlarge 

 the entrances to the needs of the colo- 

 nies. To hasten the work feeding is 

 kept up unless a sufficient honey-flow 

 is now on. 



As soon as these colonies are strong 

 enough subsequent divisions are made 

 in the same way, but the queens for 

 the new divisions may be reared. 

 Giving laying queens, however, will 

 hasten the work, and give quicker re- 

 sults, although the first expense of the 

 queens may be an important item with 

 the apiarist. Full frames of comb 

 foundation should be used to fill up the 

 hives when dividing, if combs are not 

 on hand. Thus a good use is made of 

 the weak colonies, and an out-yard 

 established which should be in good 

 shape by the following winter. 



If, however, the main honey-flow 

 comes later in the season, and there is 

 time in which to build the colonies up 

 for it, I would proceed so : Now the 

 strong colonies are used. New hives 

 are fixed up, one for each colony, and 

 a bottom-board fastened to the brood- 

 chamber with the entrance closed with 

 wire-cloth. Each brood-chamber is 

 fitted with a division or follower board, 

 or a full set of frames filled with foun- 

 dation. From each strong colony now 

 are drawn 3 combs of brood and honey, 

 and a lot of bees. These are placed in 

 one of the prepared hives, and the 

 cover is securely put on. Frames of 

 foundation from the prepared hives 

 are given to the colonies from which 

 the combs are taken, placing them on 

 each side of the cluster of the brood- 

 nest. These colonies will build up in 

 time for the honey-flow, and there 

 should be less danger of swarming. 



From the weak colonies one or 2 

 combs should have been taken also, 

 and placed in each of the prepared 

 hives, thus making 4 or 5 combs of 

 brood and honey, with the rest full 

 sheets of foundation. These are then 

 at once moved to their location in the 

 new yard, the hives and entrances 

 opened, and a laying queen in an in- 

 troducing cage given to each, when 

 feeding, to build them up, is resorted 

 to as in the other case. The division- 

 boards are used on the outside of the 

 number of combs covered by the clus- 

 ter, and is moved outward as fast as 

 more of the frames of foundation are 

 given to the bees from outside of the 

 brood-nest. In this case the colonies 

 have time to build up strong enough 

 in both yards, so that a good crop of 

 surplus honey may be obtained. 



Honey a,s a Health- Food. — This 



is a 16-page honey-pamphlet intended to help 

 increase the demand for honey. The first 

 part of it contains a short article on " Honey 

 as Food," written by Dr. C. C. Miller. It 

 tells where to keep honey, how to liquefy it, 

 etc. The last part is devoted to " Honey- 

 Cooking Recipes " and " Remedies Using 

 Honey." It should be widely circulated by 

 those selling honey. The more the people are 

 educated on the value and uses of honey, the 

 more honey they will buy. 



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